


lemonade on your breath, sun in your hair

by roadhymns



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Motorcycles, Outdoor Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 22:16:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15398703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadhymns/pseuds/roadhymns
Summary: She puts her hands on Illya's shoulders and shifts into a half-stand to be closer to his ear. "Where are we going?" she asks, loud enough to be heard over the motorcycle's engine.Illya just shrugs. "Sightseeing," he half-shouts, not bothering to look back at her.





	lemonade on your breath, sun in your hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redbrunja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrunja/gifts).



> The happiest of birthdays to redbrunja, who is an amazing friend and an amazing person.
> 
> She asked me for "something with a motorcycle, maybe they go for a drive during the summer and end up having some al fresco entertainment" well over two years ago and probably doesn't even remember it now. Sorry that my follow-through game is so weak, babe. You deserve the world, but all I got is 5k of fluff for you.

The small aircraft passes directly overhead, and Gaby tilts back to watch it go, her fingers threaded into the chain-link fence that surrounds the runway, her elbow locked for balance. The late morning sun is blinding, even through tinted lenses. For a moment, with sunlight and the roar of twin engines washing over her, she is weightless, in danger of falling up into the cloudless Spanish sky.

"Well?" Illya says from behind her, and like that she is grounded again.

"It was him," she replies, righting herself and adjusting her sunglasses on the bridge of her nose. "The numbers on the tail matched the ones in the file."

"When did Waverly say he would come back?"

"Likely not for two days."

Illya makes a noise in his throat, eyes hidden behind his own sunglasses. He's still sitting astride the Sanglas 350/4 they've been using to tail their mark all week, pulled into the thin slice of shadow cast by a low concrete outbuilding. Solo, the only one of them fluent in Spanish, has spent his time ingratiating himself with the various social circles their man moves in, but Illya and Gaby have been stuck observing. Now they don't even have that.

"Come along then, chop shop girl," he says, kickstarting the motorcycle’s engine. 

True to her sobriquet, Gaby is pleased to hear the engine continue to start smoothly after the suspicious - and, more troubling for those engaged in spycraft, _distinctive_ \- rattle it had been making when they obtained it. The bike is quieter than it was then, and faster too; she has spent several evenings now tinkering with it in the alleyway behind their hotel, eager to escape their stuffy, poorly-ventilated hotel room and glad to have something to do with her hands. It’s served them well so far, and she'll almost be sad to leave it behind when they're done here.

Gaby moves away from the fence, tightening the silk scarf she's tied her hair up with as she goes. She clutches Illya's elbow for balance before swinging on behind him and settling against his back. He spares her a glance to make sure she’s seated before nudging the kickstop. She should consider it a luxury, really, since twice already this week she’s nearly ended up sprawled in the street when he gunned the engine to catch up with a departing car. She has made up her mind, at this point, to start taking immediate fistfuls of his shirt, so that either she will stay on, or he will get dragged down with her. 

This time, though, the acceleration is comparatively gentle, with Illya easing back onto the dirt path that splits off from the main road. As they approach the intersection that will take them back toward the city and their hotel, Gaby prepares to lean into the upcoming left turn. To her surprise, Illya shifts their balance to the other side instead, a tilting arc to the right that makes Gaby tighten her recently-loosened grip against his sides as the bike bumps over the ruts, onto the crossroad, and toward the countryside. She frowns behind her at the haze of heat and smog that hovers perpetually over the city, then puts her hands on Illya's shoulders and shifts into a half-stand to be closer to his ear. "Where are we going?" she asks, loud enough to be heard.

Illya just shrugs. "Sightseeing," he half-shouts, not bothering to look back at her.

 _Sightseeing,_ he says. She glances back again at the city, where the only thing waiting for them is a long day of nothing, where their only choice is where they shall bake themselves half to death: in their hotel room or - if they’re feeling adventurous - on the crowded streets instead? She hums to herself, then tucks up close to Illya's back once more. She wouldn’t mind some sightseeing.

They ride for at least a couple of hours, and she watches the scenery go by - low stone fences bordering the road, vast fields spreading out behind them. The sun is warm on her bare shoulders; Illya's back is solid beneath her cheek when she rests against him. Every now and then, on a particularly straight and smooth patch of road, he will take one hand off the handlebars and reach back until he finds her knee or her calf, then wrap his fingers around her briefly.

Illya has never been terribly shy about touching her, other than when Solo attempts to goad him into it, but it’s increased sharply since they finally fell into whatever it is they’re doing. 

In Istanbul, he had tried pulling back, some aggravating sense of propriety rearing its head now that they were to be teammates; in Monaco, there had been more near misses; in Lisbon, she had taken the matter into her own hands. She had had quite enough of waiting for the exciting parts, sitting in East Berlin for two years and waiting for a call. Lisbon hadn’t exactly been a textbook seduction, but sometimes one must knock a man down again to knock sense into him, even if that means asking him to pour one a drink and then literally kicking his knees out from under him as he walks by. She didn't apologize - not in so many words, at least - but Illya had forgiven her for it rather quickly, all told.

Since then, his touches have been more frequent and more familiar - a hand laid over her knee under the table at dinner, fingers skimming along the exposed stretches of skin every time she wears a backless dress, his chin tucked in her hair when they lie tangled together in bed. Stripped of covers to maintain and boundaries not to cross, he touches her with the wonder of a man allowed a pleasure long denied, with a need for physical contact sharp enough that she thinks it must have predated their acquaintance by some time. And yet she gets the impression that not just any woman would do, that somehow she holds the specific combination to him, that she has unlocked him only for herself.

The next time he reaches back to find her knee, she laces her fingers into his, flexes her joints, relaxes into the growing familiarity of his palm.

They stop for petrol at a little roadside shop; Gaby fills the tank from the single pump while Illya ducks through the low door to pay. She finishes before he does, and spends a few moments looking at the building, the white exterior painted over with advertisements and enticements for wares sold within. She doesn't read Spanish, and she isn't familiar with many of the brands, but she enjoys looking anyway. She is still soaking everything up, finding moments to be aware of her freedom, to appreciate the world outside of the GDR. It’s a riot of colors and cultures in the west, and she will not miss any opportunity to take a little more of that for herself.

She smooths a hand over the motorcycle's tank, careful to avoid touching any of the hot metal beneath it. Other than a few trips around the block to test modifications she’s made to the engine, she hasn’t had much of a chance to ride it. She feels the desire rising up now, an itch in her fingertips where they rest on silver paint. Illya, for all his communist sensibilities, has not been very good about sharing. And so, she thinks to herself with a smile, it’s Berliner rules - take advantage of every unguarded moment.

Illya returns a minute later, carrying a paper bag in the crook of one arm. He blinks in the light, retrieving his sunglasses from where they had been tucked into the open neck of his dusty grey buttondown, then sees her astride the bike.

"You know how to ride that?" he asks blandly, his tone belied by a little tug at the corner of his mouth, and she scoffs in outrage before stomping on the starter and nudging the kickstop up. 

Without waiting for him, she takes off, pulling onto the road. The engine purrs between her knees, and without Illya blocking it, the wind whips the fabric of her sleeveless blouse. She opens the throttle and leans into the acceleration, the pleasure of it singing through her. 

When the shop is just a tiny spot behind her, she arcs into a u-turn. When she gets back, Illya is leaning against the pump, ankles crossed, looking amused and indulgent. She slows but doesn’t stop where he obviously expected her to, passing within arm’s reach of him and giving him a challenging look. He stares back, then watches as she circles the small parking lot to do it again. When she approaches this time, the amusement is gone, replaced by something alert and ready. She braces herself to roll free if the bike goes down - she’s going slow and he’s significantly heavier than she is, neither of which are good for maintaining control - but Illya pushes off the ball of his left foot with amazing lightness, and in the next moment he is settled behind her. The shocks dip, the Sanglas’s center of gravity changes, but she never stops and she never loses control.

She doesn’t need to look back to feel the smugness radiating off of him at that little show. In retaliation, she accelerates sharply, the engine roaring and the bike leaping forward as soon as the tires catch. She hears a surprised oath in Russian behind her, then one of Illya’s arms locks in a vicegrip around her middle to keep himself from being unseated, and she laughs. Serves him right for earlier this week.

Illya adjusts behind her once they’re on the road again and the acceleration evens out, his knees tucking in beneath her thighs. She feels something cool against her back, and realizes he must’ve tucked the bag he’d been carrying earlier between their bodies. He keeps his arm around her waist, though, knuckles pressed into her side, thumb stroking along her ribs. 

She finds herself quite distracted by it, to tell the truth, the nearness of him occupying much more of her thoughts than fair. Not twenty minutes later, Illya leans forward to catch her attention, as though he didn’t already have it. She is more than aware of the crinkle of the bag between them, then his breath warm against the shell of her ear. “On the left?” he says, and she sees what he’s talking about - a sun-soaked field with no fencing, with a slight incline up to a tangle of low-slung trees. She nods a little, and he rights himself again as she downshifts. There’s a jolt as they leave the road; she gives it no additional gas, just letting their momentum carry them toward the treeline. She cuts the engine and lets Illya and his long legs be responsible for not letting the bike tip as they finally come to a stop.

She takes the bag as he walks the motorcycle up the last of the hill to keep it out of sight of the road. She watches him for a moment, then gets distracted by slipping off her shoes and flexing her toes. Her whole body is still humming from riding, the thrumming of the engine and rumble of the road, and the warm dry grass feels amazing under the soles of her feet. She leaves her shoes where they lie and scouts around until she finds a spot to her liking to sit, in the shade beneath a tree. Illya makes his way over a moment later, pulling a pistol from his waistband before sitting with his back to the tree trunk, placing it by his knee within quick reach. 

Gaby is busy by now shuffling through the bag that she had taken from Illya. From within, she pulls out jamon and tomato baguettes wrapped in newsprint, a wedge of salted cheese, nectarines that are hardly bruised at all, and two bottles of some carbonated beverage that’s cloudy with citrus pulp. She hums in approval at the offerings for their unexpected picnic and divides up the food evenly, though they both know Illya will likely end up with the lion’s share. She likes him to remember that they are supposed to be equal, after all, even if his appetite constantly outstrips hers, in proportion to his frankly outrageous size. 

After lunch - the unwanted half her sandwich and the entire spare nectarine going to Illya, as usual - she leans against his side, sipping at her drink and feeling the sleepy pull of the siesta hour, listening to the last ticks and pops of the cooling motorcycle engine nearby and the steady rhythm of Illya’s breathing.

“We haven’t seen many sights,” she says at last, languid with the warmth of the day and the solid stretch of body beside her.

“No?” Illya says, thoughtful. He’s got one knee drawn up, his elbow propped on it, glass bottle hanging loosely from his fingertips. She doesn’t usually see him so relaxed, especially in the middle of a mission - but she supposes their mission is on siesta time itself, effectively on hold for the next little while. “You don’t think this is a sight?”

Gaby leans to look past him, out at the field stretching below them to the road, then beyond - so far out that the trees and hills turn a hazy purple near the horizon, farms and fruit orchards and little clusters of homes. She feels a prickle start between her shoulderblades, a pressure in her chest. 

It’s just earth and sky, the Spanish countryside, and earth and sky can be found anywhere - even the mismatched greys of East Berlin. But there is a sudden feeling of ineffable loveliness suffusing her anyway, one that goes beyond the warmth and the colors and the novelty, that sinks down to her very bones. She has lived with fear and danger and anger all her life, born in the shadow of the Third Reich, effectively orphaned in an occupied city, trapped by arbitrary borders. Her life of late is often frightening and very usually dangerous, and she is still possessed of an anger she does not think will ever truly leave her, but here she sits - grass between her toes and a KGB agent by her side - and in this moment, she is content.

 _Sentimental,_ she chides herself, and then leans back, so that Illya’s bulk blocks most of her view.

“It’s just a field,” she tells him dismissively, to cover for herself.

Illya looks her over for a moment, and his expression is knowing, and almost gentle. But even if he knows, or guesses, this is something they do not talk about. Something they cannot talk about, without dredging up questions that may have answers neither of them want to face. 

Then Illya makes a considering face instead, and settles back against the tree trunk. “Just a field?” he scoffs, gesturing expansively with his bottle. “This is ... historical site. Famous battle took place here.”

Gaby purses her lips to keep from smiling, willing to take the olive branch, to settle into the game. “Oh really?” she asks, dry.

“Yes,” he tells her haughtily. “Very famous, Spanish versus Napoleon.”

“Solo?” she says, just to needle him.

“Bonaparte,” he counters, giving her a look. “You know Agustina de Aragon? She fought here, killed a hundred men.”

“She sounds very brave.”

“Hero for the Spanish, braver than any man,” Illya says, clearly warming to his tale now. “But, the Spanish forces, they could not hold off the French. It looks like they will all be killed. And then, last minute, reinforcements arrive.” He pauses for a beat, for the punchline she knows is coming. “Reinforcements are from Russia, of course.”

Truth be told, she doesn’t know much about Bonaparte’s conquests - he could’ve fought here, or five hundred kilometers from here, or not in Spain at all, and she wouldn’t know the difference. One thing she’s sure of, though, is that there were no Russians marching all the way to Spain to take part.

“Oh, of course,” Gaby tells him, sipping from her own bottle.

“So, victory goes to Spanish, but it is really Russian victory. But Russian commander is so impressed by Agustina, they are soon married. So, it is a happy story.”

Gaby narrows her eyes at him. “The hero of Spain chose to marry a Russian?”

“Well,” Illya says, leaning his head back against the tree trunk and shrugging a shoulder, “Russians are best lovers, everyone knows.”

She makes a noncommittal sound, then purses her lips and blows across the glass mouth of her mostly-empty soda bottle, enjoying the deep whistle it makes. She glances over to see Illya focused on her mouth, though he meets her eyes as soon as she catches him.

“So I have taken you to see a sight, after all,” he tells her.

And so all there is left for her to do now is lean up and kiss him. His mouth is also sweet with the taste of their citrus soda, and he hums happily in his throat and cups her cheek with one of his big hands.

The angle is far from perfect, though, with both of them twisted, so after a few minutes, Illya pulls her into his lap instead. She is angled in such a way that she finds herself sitting on his thighs facing him, her knees spread to accommodate his hips.

“Hello,” she says, and then feels a little silly, until he runs his thumbs over her jawline and says it right back, warm and pleased.

He begins to slowly open the buttons on her blouse, tugging the hem out from her waistband. Between the heat and the forgiving nature of her top, forgoing a brassiere had been an easy choice this morning; now she appreciates the decision for another reason, as Illya runs his hands over every inch of skin he can. She begins to unbutton his shirt in turn, but he draws up his knees, leveraging her higher, and Gaby tangles her fingers into his hair as he pulls her in and presses his face to the space between her breasts. He peppers light kisses to her sternum, up to her collarbone, across the curve of one shoulder, pushing her open blouse out of the way as he goes.

He flicks open the fastenings of her pedal pushers and works them down her hips until he can get a hand inside. His fingers circle lazily against her through the silk of her underwear, teasing the friction and pressure he knows by now that she wants.

“ _Illya,_ ” she complains, and he smirks a little before withdrawing his hand. She pushes her pants down as much as she can while still kneeling astride him, and holds her panties aside for him. He sucks two fingers into his mouth briefly, then reaches between them to touch her again, now tracing slickly along her folds, skin to skin. He strokes her open slowly, maddenly precise, along the length of her cunt and up to trace her clit, again and again, never quite enough. Then, when she is on the cusp of snapping at him to get on with it already, he sinks his fingers into her, working them deeper in little thrusts, as far as the angle and her trapped pants will allow. His thumb rubs gentle, steady arcs over and around her clit, and she hangs her head back and loses herself quickly in the rhythm.

If there is anything that she has learned from sleeping with him, it’s that Illya Kuryakin takes direction well. Every man she has had, if they cared at all about her pleasure instead of solely their own, would take her instruction to keep doing _exactly what they were doing_ as an encouragement to go harder and faster than she wanted. “That’s perfect,” she sighs to Illya now, and so he continues exactly as before, as faultless as a freshly-wound watch.

He drops kisses along her shoulder and breasts, until her breath begins to grow short and she’s rocking against his hand, and then he leans back to watch. She knows - without him ever saying so - that this is his favorite position, to have her in his lap so that he may kiss her at his leisure, so that he may see her face when she reaches her climax and knows that he has done this for her. This time is no different, and he watches close as she clenches hard around his fingers, as if this is something he must memorize. As if he must remember every fine detail, lest he be called upon to repeat his performance at a moment’s notice. As if she is too precious or dangerous to take his eyes off of: a priceless jewel, a lit fuse.

And then she collapses forward against his chest, and his free arm wraps around her back, and he murmurs nonsense endearments in German into her hair.

His accent is nearly as thick in German as it is in English, and there was a time, not long ago, when hearing her language in slavic tones was enough to infuriate her, to make her want to claw out, to want to demand that whoever was speaking take her language out of their mouth. She knows if she ever told Illya this, he would stop at once. And so she chooses to take it as she knows he intends it - a sweet little gesture, with no ill intent. She would miss it, if he never called her _liebling_ again.

When the aftershocks have stopped and she has caught her breath, she stands on slightly unsteady legs and lets Illya tug her pedal pushers all the way down, until she can step out of them and her underwear. The light breeze is welcome against her overheated skin. But though she is naked as Eve in the Garden, Illya is still mostly dressed; so far his shirt, half-unbuttoned to reveal a deep v of his chest, is the sole victim of their activities.

She bends at the waist then and he leans up eagerly to kiss her, his hands spread across her thighs. It seems impossibly sweeter than before, her satisfaction a pleasant fizz in her blood, her own pace slow and lazy. She breaks away from him and he chases her lips a little, clearly not done with her yet, but she only presses a light peck to his brow before straightening back up. Illya tugs her closer and kisses instead at her legs, since those are still within reach. A gentle brush against one reddened knee becomes a soft, sucking kiss to her inner thigh, his hands firm in the small of her back. He can do this for hours, and she’s let him before: in Lisbon, in Athens, on long rainy nights in London, when there has been nothing better to do than lie around in her bed.

Today, she says, “We should head back.”

Illya stills immediately, the happy expectation that had been evident in his demeanor dropping away as he reluctantly loosens his grip on her. Instead, he squares up his shoulders, clears his throat. He hates more than anything to be caught looking like he's taking more than his allotment, and Gaby gets the impression that somewhere deep inside of him, he believes that her very existence in his life is already more than he deserves. Gaby feels a little mean for the way he is trying but failing to hide his disappointment, but then again, feeling mean is nothing terribly new for her. It makes it easier to hide her smirk, at any rate. She waits until Illya is looking around for the scattered pieces of her outfit before she adds, “We’ve rather left Solo to the wolves.”

That gets him to look up at her - Solo has charmed his way into an invite to some glitzy party tonight, and while neither Illya nor Gaby would really want to be going in his place, the discrepancy between his high-life assignment and theirs has been a frequent topic of mutual discontent this week, usually when caught in traffic or lying awake in the sticky-humid air of their hotel room - and Gaby raises a brow when Illya’s draw together. She can practically hear him wondering if there’s anything he’s forgotten, if there is some reason Solo might need them, say, twenty minutes sooner rather than later. Gaby pulls her lower lip in between her teeth a little, just enough of a tell, and of course he sees. Illya scoffs heavily then, knowing that she has been teasing him, and glances upward as if beseeching some great secular communist power to aid him.

“Prey for every bored señora in the city,” Gaby continues gravely, Illya’s exasperation fueling the best kind of giddiness.

“He is not victim,” Illya grumbles, thumbs rubbing delicious circles into her skin in counterpoint to his annoyed tone. “Likely he is drinking sherry and stealing jewels as we speak.”

She bends to kiss him again, and again he meets her. This time she put a little more urgency into it, a little more intent. She nips at his mouth and smoothes her hands over his jaw, feeling the bristle of his stubble under her palms. When she straightens this time, his eyes remain closed for long moments, his lips soft and parted, before he finally blinks up at her again. There is a thrill in being able to do that to him, in the way he looks at her like her every touch is a revelation.

She reaches out and runs one slim foot along the outline of his cock, feather-light, just to see him shiver.

And then, because she is still mean, she asks, “Do you think he's having more fun than we are?”

“No,” Illya growls, clearly done with this thread of conversation, then presses at the backs of her knees and brings her down to straddle him again.

All games are done at that point, and she finishes unbuttoning his shirt before attacking his belt ruthlessly. She helps him undo his trousers and push them down just enough, then takes his cock in hand and sinks down onto him. He swears and groans and jerks his hips up, and she must spread her knees a little and rock back to take the last of his length.

“It’s good?” she asks sweetly, as if she doesn’t know, as if she can’t read it all over his face. At his wordless nod, she begins to circle her hips, keeping him buried deep inside her. She reaches into his open shirt to stroke the skin along his sides, pale and surprisingly soft here, until she finds the old notch of scar tissue under his ribs on the left side that she likes so much to feel under her hands. If he doesn’t like her to touch there, he’s never said. She braces her knees in the short grass and begins to ride him in earnest, and his own hands find her hips in turn, and he starts to match her rhythm, short little thrusts that hit something impossibly good on every upstroke.

She doesn’t know if she can come again so soon, but the heat pooling in her makes her more than willing to try. But when she slips a hand between her thighs, Illya catches her wrist.

“Let me,” he begs her. She has seen him sprint half a kilometer and sound less winded at the end than he does right now. “Please, let me.”

How can she deny such a request? He makes a valiant effort of it; she knows he is getting close himself when his rhythm begins to falter, but by that point she is so close to the edge that it cannot stop her. Her orgasm is weaker this time, but longer, cresting low and rolling through her again and again. Illya’s thrusts go frantic and shallow well before she is finished, at what she can only assume is the feeling.

“Come here,” she says, and pulls him against her, so that his forehead rests on her shoulder and she can comb her fingers through his damp hair.

“ _Gaby,_ ” he manages, sounding broken, and she realizes that he wants her to finish before he does.

“So good,” she croons at him, hand firm on the back of his neck, “so good, it’s all right, come on now - ”

A handful of short, sharp thrusts later, he makes a deep, wordless noise and the tension in him snaps. His hands are still on her hips and his face hidden in her shoulder, and she feels a pang of fondness for him so strong that it nearly shocks her - fondness, or something beyond it, something she doesn’t dare give a name. She just holds him until he begins to soften within her.

“Now we should head back,” Illya says, eventually, muffled into her skin.

“How self-serving,” she admonishes playfully, and he proves her point by raising his head and kissing her to stop her talking.

It is time to head back, though, and after dressing again, Gaby has to walk halfway down the hill to find where she has left her shoes, which are now warm from baking in the sun.

Illya rolls the bike down to meet her, then waits to see if she wants to sit behind the handlebars, but she only shakes her head and moves to climb on behind him once he’s astride it. The engine takes two stomps to catch, and then they’re rolling the rest of the way back down the hill and onto the road. 

Gaby does not often look back - it is the best way she knows to survive. And yet, just before a curve will put them out of sight of the hill, she glances over her shoulder. The wind whips a loose strand of her hair across her face, tickling the bridge of her nose, catching in the corner of her mouth, and she pushes it behind her ear just in time to catch a last glance before the view slips away with the road.

She turns back, presses her cheek to Illya’s shoulderblade, warm and solid and familiar, and hides her smile in his shirt when she feels his fingers brush against her shin.


End file.
